Drama
Extra Curricular > Drama
Drama plays a major part in the life of the school, and offers opportunities for involvement, irrespective of age or experience, to a large number of boys each year. Two or three plays are produced each term, and a year's programme includes senior and junior school plays (sometimes a musical), several House plays, smaller-scale productions by particular groups of boys, and usually a play in French, German, or Spanish. Boys may gain experience not only as actors, but also as directors or as members of the technical teams responsible for stage management, lighting, sound, set design and construction, publicity, and front-of-house management. Pupils from local girls' schools participate in almost all productions. In most terms a workshop is conducted at the school by a visiting director or company.
The school regularly welcomes visits from touring theatre and opera companies. Theatre trips to plays in London and elsewhere are a regular feature of the extra-curricular life of the school: a very large number of such visits is arranged each year for boys of all ages.
Each year there are held reading and duologue competitions, at both senior and junior levels, judged by an external adjudicator. A House drama competition is part of the activity programme for boys in the Third Form.